Internship for Social Work Master’s students:UIC Women’s Mental Health Program

The Women’s Mental Health Program in the Department of Psychiatry offers one field placement for an advanced social work masters student per academic year. The placement is primarily clinical as the student’s main responsibility will be to develop and maintain a caseload for individual, couples, and family psychotherapy.

Patients served:The Women’s Mental Health Program is designed to serve the needs of women with psychiatric disorders, providing optimal treatment by taking into account reproductive and gender influences on mental illness and treatment response. Patients served include:

Women whose symptoms vary over the course of the menstrual cycle

Women who are pregnant or are planning a pregnancy

Women with infertility problems

Women who have had a pregnancy loss (e.g. miscarriage, stillbirth, abortion)

Women who are postpartum

Women who have psychiatric symptoms during perimenopause

Women who have psychiatric symptoms in the context of gynecologic illness or procedures (e.g. breast cancer, hysterectomy, endometriosis)

Effects of perimenopause on the expression of psychiatric symptoms, and treating psychiatric symptoms during perimenopause

How exogenous sex hormones can influence psychiatric symptoms

Being efficient, yet thorough, in clinical practice

These objectives are achieved through the intern’s participation and involvement in multiple clinics in the Women’s Mental Health Program, developing their own caseload of patients for psychotherapy, and attending weekly lectures in the department of Psychiatry. In addition, interns are provided with both weekly individual supervision, and group supervision to discuss and review their clinical work. Upon completion of the internship, students will gain both specialized knowledge in women’s mental health and a comprehensive set of skills in psychotherapy including its provision, documentation, and billing.

Program philosophy:The Women’s Mental Health Program aims to provide optimal health care and believes this is best achieved through teamwork among health care providers and patients. Such teamwork requires mutual respect, clear communication, and collaboration. Optimal treatment includes understanding the meaning of symptoms to the patient, cultural attitudes toward mental health, and the impact of the relationship between the clinician and patient in the patient’s response to treatment. The Women’s Program also aims to incorporate research findings into its clinical practices, while recognizing that clinicians are often called upon to make treatment decisions about conditions for which there are limited data, and/or to take into account individual circumstances that influence treatment decisions.

SupervisionThis internship is directed and supervised by Nikki Lively, LCSW (click here for staff profile). For more information or to schedule an interview (interviews are generally held in April and May for the coming academic year) please call 312.355.4387.